Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/251

prevailed in the central regions, the Thule culture, connected with permanent winter houses of stone and whale bones, based upon the hunting of aquatic mammals — whaling to a great extent — a culture whose forms of implements differ greatly from those used by the present-day Central Eskimos, but in many respects resemble those now used in Alaska.

An examination of the culture elements of the Iglulik Eskimos and their diffusion among other Eskimo tribes shows that, as regards the greater part of them, they have them in common with the other Central Eskimos, but not with the Eskimos to the west and east. Of these especially Central elements in the culture of the Iglulik Eskimos may be mentioned: The ice-hunting implements: the harpoon of the particular type, the flat harpoon heads, rests for ice-hunting harpoons, clasp for the ice-hunting harpoon line, breathing hole searcher, seal hook, seal indicator; furthermore, the composite bow of antler, arrow heads without barbs and with obliquely cut rear end, the heavy, long sledge with uprights of antler and mud shoeing, the method of spanning the team in fan-shape with a leader dog, the heavy, long whip, pack-dogs, the perfect snow house, the special form of snow shovel and snow beater, the snow probe, the autumn ice-houses, the shape of the tent, the sharp-cornered square cooking pots and narrow lamps coming to a point at both ends, sleeping rugs with fringes, dippers of musk-ox horn, water scraper of caribou scapula, the preparation of caribou skins and the implements for this, the cut of the clothing, the fringes, hair-sticks, tatooing designs, poverty of decorative art, the bead patterns, pipes, burial customs (no stone grave), fisticuffs, nuglutang, and finally, the whole of their intellectual culture with its countless taboo rules. All these features. show with certainty that the Iglulik Eskimos are typical Central Eskimos. The groups of other Central Eskimos whom they most closely resemble are the Netsilik and Caribou Eskimos, that is to say the tribes on the west and east of their own area. The Iglulik Eskimos' "summer culture" — everything concerned with hunting and fishing inland — is almost identical with that of the Caribou Eskimos; the latter's culture has no real "marine" side, and the little they have is that of the Aiviliks. The same resemblance is even more conspicuous in the Netsiliks, whose culture is closer to that of the Igluliks than all others, although the "marine" side among the Igluliks has developed rather more than among the Netsiliks, presumably as a result of geographical conditions: the abundant supplies of walrus and narwhal. That the Iglulik Eskimos must, in spite of these resemblances, nevertheless be looked upon as a separate tribe